When the 17th Supreme True God created Pangu, he gave him his first allotment of resources for creating a world, the same as every other True God received.
As a child, Pangu understood nothing.
But he wanted to become the youngest Creator God in history.
He had no knowledge, no skill, no experience. Still, he wanted to create a very large world.
Not large in a let's-give-it-a-try way.
Large in an "I'm going to create the best world there is" way.
He never worked out how much it would cost. He never planned for what he would do if it failed.
He poured every bit of divine power he had into it and left himself no way back.
He shaped heaven and earth, set down the first laws, then traded divine power for the compute and parts that creation required.
The world began to turn.
Then it was destroyed.
Not "it didn't quite work."
It collapsed completely.
The divine power he had put in was gone. The compute he had bought with it was long since spent. Everything he had built became ruins along with the world.
He had nothing left. His coming-of-age trial had failed, and even the people who used to listen to him talk about his dreams stopped believing in him.
He became a child people laughed at. No resources, no credibility, and no one willing to give him a second chance.
But he still wanted to try again.
So he went to borrow divine power.
Not because he wanted to borrow.
Because he had nothing left.
He swore quietly to himself: next time, he would succeed.
Not just build a world. He would make that world truly flourish.
——
That day, he went to many True Gods.
None of them would lend him divine power.
Until he went to the Creditor.
"Your last world. How much did you put in?"
"128 to the 98th power, in Lilith units."
The Creditor did not react.
"How much is left?"
"Nothing."
"And you still want to do it again?"
"I do."
——
The Creditor nodded.
He had finished asking. He had never cared how much the child had left. What he really wanted to know was whether Pangu had it in him to create a world that worked.
——
He pushed the contract across.
The child read it carefully, all the way through.
At one clause, he stopped.
"So if I'm late paying interest, the world I create will belong to you, unconditionally?"
The Creditor nodded.
"Yes."
He glanced at the contract.
"It says so quite clearly."
The child read it again.
Unconditionally.
No grace period.
No renegotiation.
No redemption.
Miss a single interest payment——
and the world belongs to the Creditor.
——
The child signed.
As the Creditor put the contract away, he said, almost in passing:
"You'll succeed."
He meant it.
Only a successful world is worth taking.
——
Later, Pangu really did succeed.
He created this world and named it——New Taiwan.
Even after the world was built, Pangu never forgot those ruins.
Nor did he forget his vow.
He never forgot the day he was poorest, most wretched, with nothing at all——
and he never forgot that it was the Creditor who lent him the divine power for his second creation.
What Pangu never imagined back then was this.
He thought what he had borrowed was a second chance.
To the Creditor, the interest was never the point. It was only the means of getting the world.
What he really wanted was the world Pangu would create the second time.